Redundant Reboot or Terrific Triumph?! A Series of Unfortunate Events takes Netflix

I spy with my little eye something that starts with D....

Death, despair and dramatics LITERALLY* reign in Lemony Snicket’s latest page-to-screen Adaptation

They’re baaaackkkk! And things are badder (and better) than ever. Confused? Get with the program, fire up Netflix and be ready to see a tale of tragedy that have had fans freaking out for over fifteen years! With an eight-episode release on the only too fitting Friday the 13th a new generation is now witness to the misadventures and woes that befall a trio of young orphans in A Series of Unfortunate Events. Fourteen-year-old inventor enthusiast Violet (the eldest of the clan), twelve-year-old bookish Klaus, and infant Sunny with her formidable four sharp teeth and BAMF bite abilities, first made their debut in the best-selling middle grade book of the same name, the first installment of a thirteen volume series, “The Bad Beginning” back in 1999.  

Hello, hello, hellllooooo children.

The new Netflix original series breathes life back into the Baudelaire orphans oh so tragic tale, a story which includes strings of mysterious murders, swarms of fiendish bizarre “relatives”, secret societies, a very curious collection of spyglasses, and perhaps most horribly, a nefarious actor bent on getting his paws on the Baudelaire big bucks no matter what it takes!  Left in the hands of a hapless, clueless banker and the care of a diabolical distant “relative”, the first two episodes of A Series of Unfortunate Events  aren’t so much miserable as they are a must watch.

The opening scene of “The Bad Beginning”, an arc that is broken up into two hour long episodes, is on the dismal Briny Beach. It’s there with the sky swathed in swirling fog, and the landscape saturated in a heavy gray gloom, that young Klaus, Violet and Sunny learn that their adoring parents have perished...in a terrible fire!

Ruh-roh. There's a storm coming Harry  and you best be ready when she is!

It’s here, where the kiddos meet Mr. Poe (K Todd Freeman) a bumbling banker who’s endlessly hacking and coughing, and who just so happens to be the sole the executor of the Baudelaire estate and the enormous fortune Violet will inherit the instant she turns eighteen. Poe’s also gullible beyond belief and more than a little whipped by his larger than life, operatic and gossipy editor-in-chief wife, Eleanora (Cleo King). Reluctantly taken in by Poe, it’s not long before the Baudelaire’s are not so reluctantly taken in by their closest living erm “relative” Count Olaf.

Justice Strauss. Married to the law. Does not have book babies. Welp.

The greedy Olaf gives the Baudelaires a floor length list of Cinderella chores, assigning the kids the herculean task of single handedly scrubbing and refurbishing his rotting mansion. Under the authority of this vile villain the three Baudelaires scrub a bathroom ravaged by rats with toothbrushes, prepare a pasta puttanesca dinner in a kitchen most definitely in violation of MANY health codes and spend their cold, dark nights, squished into a rickety trundle bed in Olaf’s barren attic. Even though the sibs are forced to bend to Olaf’s every demanding whim, they still manage to find the time to start establishing a friendship with their next-door neighbor, heart-on-her-sleeve Justice Strauss (Joan Cusack) and utilize her mad awesome personal library for research.

As far as the cinematography and and scene designs go, the color palette bounces back and forth from the sweet candy shop hues of the city, to Count Olaf’s dreary and foreboding mansion.

It’s this contradiction that makes this show compulsively watchable and a visual treat. The marriage between dark-and-whimsy here makes for a marvelous (...yes, see what I did there? *wink nudge*) and somewhat uncommon environment. Olaf’s decrepit nightmare house, covered with cobwebs, raided by rats, and crawling with other creepy critters is in stark contrast to the other character’s colourful and quirky abodes. Especially, the chronically cheerful next-door neighbor Justice Strauss’s Stepford Wife standard house, with it’s cherry blossom covered front yard and twittering bluebirds.

The casting of  A Series of Unfortunate Events is a triumph worth noting! Unlike posh Brit Jude Law, who mused to himself,  hunching over a clickity-clackity typewriter while cast in shadow in the 2004 film, here Snicket as played by Patrick Warburton directly interacts with the audience. Lemony Snicket, the nom de plume of Daniel Handler, is as much of a character in A Series of Unfortunate Events as the recurring villains and the Baudelaire trio.

Warburton processing his grief.

Warburton effortlessly shrugs into the role of the author and investigator of Series and, goes off on tangents as in the books canon. In that same vein, he guides the viewers along, as a consistently invisible (and could it be...a teeny tiny bit unreliable?) narrator. He’s got a dry and bland sense of humor that manages to be both dark and provoke laughter. Warburton excels at acting out the long-suffering and enigmatic Lemony. He interjects little clues and his own morose musings here and there as the narrative unfolds, with a commentary that is sharp and witty and unapologetically bleak. In one scene, he admits, “I’ve spent years up late and crying myself to sleep trying to find out what caused the Baudelaire fire.”

Next, the much suffering siblings are all relatively unknown and fresh-faced actors. Major brownie points to Netflix show runners for actually casting age-appropros kids!!! No, there are no twenty-something-year-olds playing tweens here, instead this adaptation is canon beyond compare (boom) ! Budding actress Malina Weissman is brainy inventor and doting big sister Violet. Weissman’s played it up on screen recently as young Kara Zor-El from the CW’s Supergirl and as a gushing kitty cat lover and friendless misfit, Rebecca in 2016’s movie Nine Lives. Here as the eldest Baudelaire with a curtain of glossy brown hair and a preppy pink whale-print dress she looks like a Vineyard Vines catalog model brought to life.

Cuter and sadder than a basket of abandoned puppies.

And while Weissman undeniably has a lot of heart, her breathless proclamations and plucky determination still feel flat. Weissman often looks close to tears and embodies that phrase: “grin and bear it”.  It’s when her gadgets come into action that Weissman’s Violet shines on the screen. The scene where Violet launches her grappling hook and ties herself into a nifty lifting contraption that uses components of a pasta maker to allow Violet to pulley herself up to great heights add a fantastical element to the tale. As far as child actors go Weissman doesn’t emote a whole heck of a lot, and her performance isn’t earth shattering, but in parts one and two of the “Bad Beginning” she plays her role convincingly and confidently enough.

Bookish and bespectacled Klaus played by another first timer, Louis Hynes, is the middle child and the walking encyclopedia of the trio. “He wore glasses that made him look intelligent,” Narrator Lemony Snicket steps into the scene and introduces him, “He was intelligent.” Hynes plays the stiff scholar with a certain degree of social awkwardness, and much like Weissman his performance is a bit flat and one-noted.

As of now, the kids can competently recite their lines, but they don’t yet embody the ink and paper characters that were so fully realized in the books. The exception to this is Sunny whose lines are exclusively baby babblings, and playful time-lapse camera work that speeds up her biting skills to look woodchuck fast. Hopefully, as the series progresses, in The Reptile Room, The Wide Window and the Miserable Mill, Klaus and Violet will become more rounded characters.

I may not have tear free shampoo chilllldren but enjoy a gluten free cupcake

The most exceptional of the bunch is saved for last! Neil Patrick Harris as the thirsty thespian Count Olaf steals the show. His over the top zany performance as the unibrow-sporting baddie is hilarious and may even exceed  that of fellow comedian Jim Carrey in the 2004 A Series of Unfortunate Events movie. He’s by far the most animated of the bunch, grunting, growling, stomping and swaggering across the screen. Harris’s musical chops, much of which debuted on Doctor Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, are on full display here. His cautionary crooning is featured in the opening credits where he urges the audience to “look aaaaway, looook aaawaaay.”

When he introduces his fellow actors to the Baudelaire orphans, his “It’s the Count!” musical number is golden. The lyrics are hysterical and the accompanying dancing sequence is a campy, and irresistible riot. Undoubtedly this will  be brought up time and time again in pop culture this year. The dynamic between Harris’s scheming and egotistical actor and the rest of his troupe is one of the highlights of the show. His acting squad is composed of an androgynous dead-panner, a big, bald Andre the giant type, a double-hook handed man, and twin crones smitten with Olaf. They make for a motley bunch and it’s impossible to not be taken by how bizarre and hilarious ( and bizarrely hilarious) they are! Harris’s slapstick shenanigans both on his own and as a part of his wicked ensemble make A Series of Unfortunate Events an absolute must watch.

Dinner AND a show. Aka the great roast beef fiasco.

Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events episodes one and two are a wickedly wonderful romp and is sure to be a hit with both long time fans and to new generations. As dark and unfortunate as it may be, looking away from the Baudelaire’s mishaps is an impossible feat. Consider it the snarky kid-sister show to fellow Netflix exclusive Stranger Things; even just two episodes in, Series has more than proved its worth as the latest must-see on TV today.

*this reference, you’ll get it. Watch the show already!

***images retrieved from the IMDB